Chapter Twenty Five – A Walk in the Bush

Matt smiled to himself when he saw them walking out of the house just as he was arriving. Matt waited until he caught Kiana’s eye, then looking at an imaginary watch on his arm, tapped his foot and put his hands on his hips. He waited until Kiana was close before looking up and rolling his eyes. Kiana stuck her tongue out and went cross-eyed.

“Been waiting here all night to do that I suppose,” she said. “Had to wait for Nikau to finish doing his nails.”

“Whatever,” huffed Nikau.

They walked mostly in silence with Kiana busy on her phone. When Matt tried to talk to her, she held up her hand saying, “Sorting out my schedule, fellas.” 

As they walked through the gates Nikau held out his fist to Matt for a bump. “See you and your mates at lunchtime.”

Matt’s first class was English. The task was to write down all the things you could remember doing during the holidays and write one sentence about each one, then two or more sentences about the top three. Finally, pick your favourite thing and write one page about it.

Matt looked at his list, it was long. Where should he start? Would it be riding on the motorbike with Dylan, skinny dipping in the lake, working on the farm, starting karate, building the deck, fishing on Gary’s boat, learning to snorkel, playing with Dexter, Lola? He sat back in his chair, closed his eyes and thought. To his great surprise writing came easily. Matt wrote as fast as he could, filling page after page. At the end of class when handing his work in, the teacher looked briefly at Matt’s work and smiled. “Good effort. Can you write with two hands?” she asked.

Jed looked over at Matt as the bell rang to signal the lunch break. “Gotta go to the loo first,” whispered Jed.

“Me too,” Matt whispered back. They both laughed. Weirdly whenever they were about to go to karate or training they first had to go to the loo. Dylan had told them though, “If you aren’t crapping your pants, you’re just not taking this seriously enough!”

Relieved, they ran to meet Ricky. On their way, they passed Nikau, who joined in, along with a number of his mates. When Ricky saw the group of boys approaching he put his hands on his hips and looked at Matt. “Jeepers, is this the rugby team?” he asked. Then clapping his hands. “Let’s rip straight in, just follow along for the first one.” Back and forth they ran, the excited chatter was soon replaced with heavy breathing then puffing. When the last of the group had finished the drill Ricky gestured for everyone to come around him. “Now just try this part gently. Don’t break your neck.” Ricky demonstrated a few shoulder rolls. “Make sure you switch from side to side, left shoulder, right shoulder. Matt and Jed, let’s see you do a few.” Matt immediately dropped low and started rolling, Jed followed behind. “Let’s go, team. Twenty, ten each side.”

The boys laughed as they struggled to do the rolls and collided with one another. Ricky clapped his hands again. “That’s fine for now, you know what you need to practice. Once you have the shoulder rolls sorted you can move onto dive rolls.” Ricky did a low, slow dive roll. “Take your time, don’t rush it. Once you have that sussed move onto running, jumping dive rolls. Matt, please bend over and put your hands on your knees.” Ricky ran, dived over Matt, did a roll and carried on running. “The goal is to be able to run alongside a mate, do a dive roll, pop up and still be alongside your mate. Understand?” The boys nodded. “Next we can work on walkovers, two hands and one hand. They are sorta like a cartwheel, but going forwards. The idea is to learn balance and control, you probably won’t do one in a fight!” Ricky did some walkovers, they looked effortless. “That’ll do for today. See you Monday for those who are keen. It’s time to eat lunch.”

Matt checked his phone and called out to Jed. “Hey, Jed. I’m meeting Gary after school to help chop up a tree.”

Jed nodded. “Hill sprints in the morning?”

“Sure,” replied Matt, “seven?”

“Thirty,” replied Jed, “gotta get over this lot first.”

Jed tapped Matt’s arm as they walked out of the school gates. “Look, there’s Gary,” he said excitedly as he waved.

“Okay, gotta go,” replied Matt as he jogged over to Gary’s ute. “See you in the morning.”

Gary leaned out the window, waved to Jed and gave him a thumbs up.

“Good day, buddy?” asked Gary.

“Yep,” replied Matt, “we trained with Ricky.”

“Good to hear. How’s that going?”

Matt thought for a moment. “Alright, I think. Though a heap of Nikau’s mates turned up as well.” Matt looked at Gary carefully to see what Gary’s reaction would be. Gary smiled.

“That’s easy.” said Gary. He glanced at Matt, “if there are too many people you just train harder until some leave.”

“What if the wrong ones leave?” asked Matt.

“No such thing,” replied Gary, “those who are keen stay.” Gary reached over and gently pulled on Matt’s ear. “So did anything interesting happen this week?”

Matt looked at Gary and raised his eyebrows, of course, Gary knew what had happened. “Well, Rooster wanted a fight. But he backed down.”

“Did you make him back down?” asked Gary.

Matt looked at Gary and nodded. “Yep.”

“Any bullets fired or nonsense said that would trigger a follow-up?”

Matt shook his head. “Nope, it’s over.”

Gary nodded and smiled. “Well done, Matt. You have mastered the most important karate technique of all. I’m very impressed.” As they parked outside Matt’s driveway Gary reached over to shake Matt’s hand. “You have nailed this. It’s a very important lesson to learn. You must now teach Dylan!” Matt smiled as he thought about Dylan’s likely response. “Now rip inside, change your clothes and let your folks know where you’re going. We need to get cracking. We’ll eat on the way home.”

Matt sprinted down the drive, jumped the fence and rubbed Lola. “Sorry, girl gotta go.”

Gary smiled to himself when he saw Matt come flying over the fence on his way back. “He’s been practising those,” he thought. “Folks okay with you coming?”

“Yep,” puffed Matt. “I’ll just need to text when heading back.”

“Let’s go. Remember Chrissy, the lady who made you the scones? Well, a tree has come down across her driveway and she can’t get out. We’ll clear that, chop up anything useful for firewood and bring the rest back. So we’re in a hurry. What should we do?”

Matt turned to face Gary with a confident grin. “Drive very slowly.”

Gary laughed loudly. “What a great answer. Yes, Matt, we should drive slowly and safely. Being in a hurry doesn’t change a darn thing. Now to drive safely we should drive slowly, but there are some other things we can do. One is to keep a safe distance between cars. Out in the country, a four-second gap between cars is sensible. Another thing is to keep your eyes on the road, never combine driving with sightseeing. That’s a biggie. Also, if you are in a line of traffic, leave a bigger gap between cars. That way others can enter and exit more easily. Does that sound sensible?”
 

“Yep,” replied Matt, “very sensible.”

As they reached the open road Gary wriggled in his seat to get comfortable and took a big breath in. “Well, Matt, I’ve made a big decision. I’ve decided to buy an old boat, well actually I have bought it. You’ll see it at the farm when you next visit. It’s a seven-metre trailer sailer. The plan is to rip all the rigging off, put in an electric motor and battery then have a play. Once we’re happy that all systems are go, we can modify Eldie and put the electric gear in her. What do ya reckon?”

Matt looked over at Gary.

“What’s that funny look for, I’m serious!” Gary smiled back. “By the way,” continued Gary, “the trailer sailer was super cheap as the sailing gear is pretty much stuffed and the boat’s been out in the weather. It looks terrible, but the hull is sound and it will look like new once cleaned and touched up. If you’re up for it we can start tomorrow.”

“Yep, that sounds like fun.”

“Fun?” asked Gary. “You must be teasing me. It’s going to be absolutely marvellous. This is going to be the most exciting thing I’ve done in years. I can hardly sleep at the moment.” Gary laughed and smiled. “We need to enjoy life, young Matt and I am going to enjoy this! But first, we need to sort Chrissy’s tree.”

Matt looked out of the car window as Gary reversed the ute onto the front lawn. The tree had split in the middle and one half had fallen across the driveway and onto the fence.

“Looks like the fence has taken a beating,” mused Gary as he opened his door, “let’s get into it. Please get all the tools out, I’ll let Chrissy know we’re here.”

Chrissy though, was waiting for them on the other side of the tree. “Welcome, gentlemen. Thank you so much for coming in a hurry,” she called.

“Hurry?” asked Gary. “We came as slow as we could. Isn’t that right, Matt?” Gary put his hands on his hips and shook his head at Chrissy. “Now, Chrissy. I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t go climbing the trees.”

Chrissy laughed loudly, a raspy cackle. “It wasn’t me, it was all the birds that did it.”

Gary winked at Matt. “Well you might be too young to know about this, but Chrissy is right. Those sparrows sure know how to party in spring!”

“Shoosh you,” said Chrissy, “you sort the tree while I make some scones.”

“Now you’re talking,” said Gary, “if we knew about the scones we would’ve hurried.”

Gary turned to Matt. “This is a right mess. So stay clear while I lop off some of the bigger branches and get it safe. What you can do is use the hand saw to cut up the lighter bits the length of the tray. We’ll want to tie them down very tightly for the trip back with nothing hanging over the back. Got it?”

“Yep,” replied Matt. Then before Gary could speak added, “ear muffs and gloves.”

Gary patted him on the shoulder and smiled. As Matt was now coming to expect Gary spent some time walking around the tree and looking at it carefully, before making a series of cuts. The wood was soft and easy for Matt to cut with the handsaw and it did not take long to have all the light branches on the tray of the ute. Gary showed Matt where to stack the wood. Matt traipsed back and forth with the wheelbarrow as Gary cut the tree limbs into firewood. When the fallen tree was removed Gary explained that they would leave the remainder of the tree for the next trip as there was no more room on the ute. Matt swept the sawdust into the garden while Gary measured the broken fence palings.

“Howdy neighbour.”

Gary looked up and smiled at the old face leaning over the fence. “Sorry about the fence, mate. We’ll get this sorted,” he said.

“You guys are professionals,” said the old face, “would you mind doing me a small favour.”

“We will not leave until it is done. What can we help with?”

“Well, there are some branches that hit my window in the wind. Maybe the young fella could chop them off?”

Gary whistled, waved to Matt, then turned back to the old face. “Actually, young Matt here saw those branches and said he was going to sneak over and cut them off when you weren’t looking! He’s all yours while I tie this load down. We can take the branches too if that helps.”

“Thank you very much,” said the old face.

Gary passed a hand saw to Matt. “See you in a moment, Matt, I will let Chrissy know we are about to go.”

Matt walked around the fence and followed the old face to a tree between the fence and his house. “This branch that hits the window and maybe this one that rubs on the fence,” suggested the old face.

“No problem,” replied Matt as he took to cutting them off. 

“Should I take these away?” asked Matt.

“If there is room lad, that would be very helpful.”

Matt nodded. “Done.”

Gary met Matt at the ute, lifted the wheelbarrow on top and tied the load down securely. He hugged Chrissy, thanked her for the scones and jumped in the ute.

“One more stop, Matt. Should be interesting.” The stop was a marine shop where Gary picked up some epoxy resin and paint for the new boat. Most importantly though Gary discussed a range of electric drive options.

“Great news, Matt,” said Gary with obvious excitement as they climbed back into the ute, “we’re going to be able to get a perfect little motor for the boat. Can barely wait. Now, are you hungry yet?”

“Yep,” replied Matt.

“Good answer. There’s a burger bar on the way out of town, we’ll stop there.” The burger bar was indeed on the way out of town, to Matt’s eye they had passed some much better-looking ones before parking outside a somewhat dingy, tired-looking burger bar. Gary had assured Matt that this was the best place to eat and that short of a time machine, this was the best way to experience a little bit of the seventies. He added that the food itself was not leftover from the seventies. There were a few groups of young people milling around, waiting it seemed for the night to get underway.

“Any burger you like, Matt, we’ll share a bag of chips to start with and see how you go. The burgers are pretty big. Not like those silly things they sell in town.” Then looking up at the short, stocky man behind the counter. “Isn’t that right, boss?”

“They don’t sell burgers in town,” replied the short, stocky man, “they wouldn’t know what a burger was.”

Gary placed their order and wandered over to the tables on the grassed area. He approached a table that was crammed with girls chatting amongst themselves.

“Evening ladies. How’s your night going so far?” asked Gary.

“Alright baldy,” replied one of the girls in an alcohol-affected voice, “how bout you?” A few of the girls laughed and turned to take a look at Gary.

“I’m not bald,” replied Gary while rubbing his head. “It just looks like it.”

“Looks like it alright,” replied the girl. “Looks like you’re going bowling.” The girls laughed more confidently, staring, waiting for Gary’s reply.

“No, not bald. Look,” Gary leant forward and pointed to his head. “There’s some hair left around the edges, it’s just slipped down a little bit.”

“Slipped on the floor bro. Got swept up, put in the rubbish!” The girls howled with laughter, their confidence growing. Gary waited with his hands on his hips for them to quieten down.

“No, not all the way to the floor, only halfway,” he replied as he hoisted his shirt up exposing his very hairy belly and chest.

Some of the girls screamed with mock horror. The girl who had been talking with Gary had her head on the table as she laughed. When she lifted her head Matt could see tears streaming down her face. She tried several times to speak before replying.

“Somebody call the zookeeper, the monkey escape.” This reduced the girls to a screaming, laughing wreckage. It was sometime before Gary could reply.

“Good to see you ladies can look after yourselves, so make sure you do just that and stick up for each other. What are you eating?”

“Chips, bro.”

Gary nodded. “Well, I’ll shout you something we all love back at the zoo. Will you wait for it?”

“Yeah, bro. We’ll be here for hours.”

Gary put his hands on his hips while he thought. “Okay, one monkey poo each and something very special,” he said. Gary patted Matt on the shoulder as he walked past. “Back in a second, buddy.” He returned with their burgers and called to the girls, “Dinner is on the way ladies have fun.”

“Yeah, have fun at the zoo party.”

“Can’t wait,” Gary yelled as he opened the ute door, “it’s a waxing party.”

Matt could hear the girls laughing and whistling through the closed window.

“Thanks for the burger,” said Matt. “What did you get them?”

“Some more chips, a sausage each and a deep-fried banana each.”

Matt smiled to himself. “They will love that,” he thought.